Time Does Not All Wounds Heal
by The Soul of Light and Dark
Summary: He'd saved the future and Temporal Tower. He'd be forever remembered as a hero. but none of that mattered to him, because he had to leave behind the one he loved.


Hello everyone! *waves* My first story on the site! Splee! This just came to me out of nowhere, and I made it. Review please, because I NEED feedback. Otherwise I just shrivel up and become a useless, non-writing lump. Major MD2 spoilers.

**Time Does Not All Wounds Heal**

I leapt nimbly over the small pile of rocks in front of me and made my way through the doorway leading to the room beyond. I glanced around quickly, but it appeared to be deserted. I started to make my way across the room, but my progress was cut short when a shape darted out of an adjacent hallway and fired an Extrasensory attack at me. I dodged the attack easily and glared at the Bronzor that had been foolish enough to try it. You have no idea how hard it is to actually make a face like mine look intimidating, but I've learned how. I've actually heard my glare being described behind my back. Apparently it's "cold enough to freeze lava".

The little flying disk quailed slightly under this chilling gaze, and that was all the opening I needed. I delved quickly into the part of my mind where the knowledge of how to do what I was about to attempt was hidden. Having located it, I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and spewed a volley of glowing yellow projectiles which collided with the Bronzor. My Bullet Seed was usually more than enough to deal with any foe, and this Bronzor was no exception. It was unconscious before it hit the floor.

Oh, sorry. I'm doing it again, aren't I? See, I have this problem where I tend to start a story in the middle. Allow me to describe the scene a little bit. See, I'm not really all that average. A lot of you are probably thinking "well, so what? I'm not exactly what you'd call 'normal'" but trust me, I think I've got you beat. First off, I'm from the future. Yes, you read that correctly. Secondly, I'm a Treecko. A Treecko who, until a little while ago, was a human. Does anyone think they can compete with that? I didn't think so.

All this began a few months ago. The first thing I remember is waking up with the taste of sand in my mouth, and I get up and look around to find myself on an unfamiliar beach. Of course, that doesn't seem so odd when compared to the fact that I've become a Treecko. I can't remember a thing about who I am except that I used to be a human. After the expected session of freaking out and questioning of my sanity, I gradually managed to calm down enough to explore my surroundings. I found myself in a small village called Treasure Town filled with very agreeable inhabitants who all happened to be Pokémon. Apparently, humans are something of a rarity around here. Anyway, due to a rather odd sequence of events I ended up joining an exploration guild that's headed by a goofball named Wigglytuff. That isn't to say I don't like the guy, but no one who knows him will deny that he's a little silly.

Anyway, life goes as normally as can be expected for a guy in my situation. I traveled a lot, saw some really cool places, made new friends, and learned about the world I'd found myself in. It took a little while, but eventually I began to enjoy myself. Life seemed pretty good until I found out about Grovyle and Dusknoir. Grovyle is a thief from the future who went around stealing Time Gears. Time Gears are ancient relics which regulate the flow of time, and if they get taken time stops in the place where they used to be. Dusknoir is something of a police agent, also from the future, who was sent to stop him.

At least, that's what I believed right up until Dusknoir dragged me back to the future along with Grovyle and attempted to have me executed. I managed to escape, and I learned the real story from Grovyle. Apparently, in the future time has stopped. The wind doesn't blow, the sun doesn't rise, and everything's pretty miserable. This future is ruled by a tyrant by the name of Primal Dialga. Primal Dialga used to be just plain old Dialga until his home, Temporal Tower, collapsed. This caused all of time to cease and caused Dialga to go insane.

As can be expected, this isn't really the kind of life that a lot of people really enjoy, and some of them were trying to fix it. Two such people were Grovyle and a human partner of his, who was later revealed by Dusknoir to be none other than myself. Apparently, we traveled around the future trying to learn where the Time Gears used to be, because if somebody had managed to bring the Time Gears to Temporal Tower before it had collapsed it would have been saved and time would have gone on. We did this using an ability I have known as the Dimensional Scream, which allows me brief flashes of post cog and pre cog whenever I touch an object relating to the Time Gears. (I never really understood the name myself. The dimensions don't really have much to do with it, and as far as I can tell there's no screaming involved.)

Anyhow, after learning the locations of the Time Gears we used the help of the Time Traveling Pokémon Celebi to travel to the past and return things to normal. However, something went wrong in the time stream, and we ended up getting separated, with me becoming a Treecko at the same time and losing my memory. Grovyle, who still remembered everything, went about his mission to recover the Time Gears. All went fine until Dusknoir, who just happened to be an agent of Primal Dialga, showed up and dragged us back to the future.

Anyway, long story short, we escaped the future again, got the Time Gears and headed for Temporal Tower. Dusknoir showed up to cause trouble, Grovyle dragged him back to the future, and I went on to Temporal Tower, defeating a recently Primal-ified Dialga and saving time.

Sorry. Long story, I know. Anyway, skipping ahead to now, I am climbing down from the top of Temporal Tower, along with-

"Troke?" a voice called from up ahead. Following soon after it was a young Torchic. "You okay? I heard a little scuffle in here." Troke is the name I gave myself when I woke up on the beach. Nicholas, my real name, didn't really seem an appropriate name for a Treecko. "I'm fine Pyra," I answered.

And there I go again, omitting the details. If Pyra knew I'd left her out of the story…well I'd rather not think about it, mostly because I have a good idea about how much it'd hurt. Anyway, Pyra was the one who found me passed out on the beach and woke me up. I fully expected her to think I was insane when I told her I'd used to be human, but not only did she not, she believed me. She was the one who actually suggested we join the Wigglytuff Guild, and she's been my trusted partner through thick and thin. She's been with me every step of my crazy way, and sometimes I wonder what I would have done if I didn't have her to stand by me.

"Alright, if you're sure. You've been kinda dragging behind this whole way down though," she replied. "Perk up a bit. Just wait 'til we get back to Treasure Town and tell everyone we saved the world!" I smiled gently at the radiant glow in her eyes. When I'd first met Pyra she'd been…okay I'll say it. She was a bit of a coward. She was always turning to me for help and seemed terrified of doing anything on her own. As we went along, though, she began to grow. Eventually, where there had been a timid little girl there was a confident young woman. As I began to see this new side of her, I gradually began to notice that she was caring, funny, and sweet. Just being around her made me feel happy, and I found myself going out of my way just to put a smile on her face. Sometimes at night, when I would just lie awake and let my thoughts wander, I would find myself thinking about her, about her smile and her laugh, about how her bright orange and yellow feathers seemed to glisten and the way her eyes sparkled, just like little pieces of onyx.

Have you guessed that I'm in love yet? Yes, I know, we're something of an odd couple. A Fire-type and a Grass-type don't exactly scream "compatibility" but trust me, there's more to romance than just whether you spit seeds or fireballs.

"Trust me Pyra," I replied. "I'm doing just fine." To be honest, though, I was anything but fine. Pyra was right to be concerned. Normally I'd be the one slowing down to wait for her. However, I'd been feeling less than chipper ever since we put the Time Gears in their plinth at the top of the tower. My whole body felt like a lead weight, and it was getting heavier by the second. I wasn't really putting on any pounds; the strength was being sucked out of me.

See, when we saved the future, we altered the flow of time. Now the events that led up to my birth never occurred, which meant that I never existed. The only reason I was still here now was because the universe was still figuring that out. Pyra, of course, knew none of this. I didn't realize it myself until Dusknoir flat out told me right before Grovyle dragged him back to the future. There was no way I could tell her. Would you have told the one you love that by doing what you had to you'd kill yourself?

"Alright then," she said again. "I guess I'll just have to slow down then." That's what she did, falling into step beside me. I grinned appreciatively, but on the inside my guts squirmed. I knew sooner or later I was going to vanish, and I had to tell her, but I just couldn't do it. Right now, when she was so happy, so flush with victory and all that, to hear that would crush her utterly, even if she didn't feel the way I did. I actually didn't know what she thought of me at the moment, except that she trusted me with her life. Still, that's how all good friends feel about each other, right?

Fortunately, I could distract myself slightly from these ill tidings with the challenge of getting down Temporal Tower. We may have saved the place from ruin, but it had still taken a heavy beating. The structural integrity was shot, piles of rubble were everywhere, and occasionally we'd come to a huge chasm in the floor. Now, this last was nothing new to us, having done more than our fair share of spelunking, and we handled it the same way we always did. I would attach myself the wall, using the tiny spikes in my digits that all Treecko have, and Pyra would sit on top of me as I shimmied to the other side. However, now this exertion, which normally was nothing to me, sapped my strength so badly that several times I lost my grip and almost fell. It didn't help that Pyra, who I could normally lift with no problem, now felt like a bowling ball on my side.

After about an hour of climbing, scrambling, and crawling through tiny openings we walked through the entrance to the tower. "Ooh, look at the sunrise!" Pyra called, dashing ahead as if to meet the view. I could barely stumble after her. Even walking was difficult now, and I knew I was down to minutes. Still, I put on as brave a face as I could and trudged on.

By now Pyra was just a little orange blob on the horizon. Even at this distance I could see her give a little skip with each step, and I could hear her chirping happily. The sight made me smile even as my heart seized. I stood there drinking it in like a man dying of thirst. Just seeing her this happy made the pain of leaving a little less, at least until I remembered that it was her I was leaving. Then it came right back.

I was so lost in just watching her that it took me a short while to realize that something was happening to my arm. Eventually, though, my attention was attracting by a pale yellow glow. I looked down to see a small sphere of yellow light resting on my forearm, and as I stared it lifted into the air and vanished, leaving a small glowing hollow in my arm where it had been. 'Well, I guess that's it then.' I thought. 'At least it doesn't hurt.'

"Troke?" I looked up slowly to see Pyra looking at me with a little concern. She must have come back after seeing that I'd fallen behind. Well, there was no hiding it anymore, so I smiled sadly and said, "Sorry Pyra. This is as far as I go."

"What do you mean?" she asked. "Stop kidding around. The Rainbow Stoneship's right up this way. We're almost on our way home." She didn't sound frantic, just nervous. Like she knew something was wrong, but not really what. "Pyra, we've done a wonderful thing today," I said. "We've saved Temporal Tower, we've altered the flow of history, and we've kept the world from being paralyzed." "I know," she said. "Wait 'til everyone back home hears about it." I could hear that the enthusiasm in her voice was forced. She was starting to get more concerned now. Probably from the way I was talking.

"However, that's come at a price," I went on sadly. "When we created this new, better future, it had to take the old one's place. That means that everything about the old future has to be swept away." She was starting to see where I was going, but she wouldn't accept it. I could see it in her eyes, and I could almost hear her thinking 'No, he can't be serious. Please don't let it be true!' My nerve almost broke there, but I had to keep going, so I inhaled slowly and said what I knew I had to. "Everything, including the people that came from it. Even me."

For a moment, she said nothing. "Troke, stop it," she said at length. "This isn't funny." I knew that she could tell I wasn't kidding, but she wouldn't accept the reality of what I'd said. However, at that moment another little yellow orb appeared, this time on my shoulder, and lifted another piece of me away into the void. I saw it reflected in her eyes, and knew that she saw what it meant. "No…" she said quietly.

"I'm sorry Pyra," I went on. "I wanted to tell you so badly, but I couldn't. I knew that if I did, you would have begged me to give up this quest, insisting that there must be another way even though we both knew that there _was_ no other way. And I would have let myself believe you. I would have let you convince me to turn my back on what I knew I had to do. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't condemn the world to that dark hell just because I wanted to stay with you."

I was starting to fade faster now. More and more pieces of me were being pulled away into the air, but my body was still mostly intact. I watched as the reality of what was happening finally settled on Pyra, and my heart clutched as I saw tears well up in her eyes. "Troke, please don't go," she said, her voice shaking. I walked over to her and put my arms around her. "I'm sorry," I said quietly.

I held her like that for a short while, and then I pulled away to look her in the face. The tears were still in her eyes, but so far she had managed to hold them back. Even now, when I was about to vanish forever, I could not help but be struck by just how beautiful I thought she was. A thought came to me in that moment. At first I rejected it. I'd never had the guts to do it before. Then I remembered the situation that I was in. Could I really go to whatever was waiting for me knowing that I'd never even tried to tell her? I knew that I couldn't, so I plucked up my courage, leaned in and kissed her right on the beak.

I felt her start slightly at the gesture, but she didn't pull away from me. I broke the contact quickly even so. She looked at me with a slightly bewildered air. "What was that?" she asked, and I grinned. See, Pokémon don't kiss. It's a purely human gesture. Even the humanoid ones don't do it. She'd have no idea what I'd just done, but from the look in her eyes I was willing to bet that she had just the faintest inkling of what it meant. "It's called a kiss," I explained. "It's how humans say 'I love you'".

For a moment, she just looked at me, and for the life of me I could not guess what was going through her mind. Then she ran at me and buried her face in my shoulder, crying. "Nicholas, please don't go!" she sobbed, causing my already battered heart to suffer yet another blow. "Please. I love you too much. You can't leave me." I put my arms around her again, feeling my own tears run down my cheeks. "I'm sorry," I said again.

I was really falling apart now. Whole sections of my body were gone, and the parts they had held together were just floating in midair. Even part of my head was gone now. All that was left was one eye and a fair chunk of my mouth. Eventually there wasn't enough of me for Pyra to lean against anymore, and she watched what little was left fade away with misery in her eyes. I put my one remaining hand on her check and smiled as best I could. "I will always love you," I said. "Even when time has ground to a halt, and space has warped to nothing, I will still love you." She couldn't say anything, and instead just stood there with tears silently spilling from her eyes. "Just promise me one thing," I said, right before I vanished. "Promise me you won't cry too much after I'm gone." And then I dissolved completely.

I did not, as I had originally expected, simply cease to be. It was a fair enough expectation, or so I thought. Since I'd erased myself from history, it meant that I'd never existed, which meant that my soul would never have been created and thus would have no place in the afterlife. However, like I said that didn't happen. Instead, I was brought to the Hall of Origins by none other than Arceus herself. That's right, the Origin Pokémon, goddess of the world and mistress of creation brought me to heaven herself. She explained to me that my hunch had been correct. If I were a normal case of being erased, I would have simply ceased to be. However, my actions down on earth had been more than enough for her to make a special exception and let me in to paradise.

And to anyone else, the Hall of Origins would have been paradise. Basically it was, well, a hall that went on forever with thousands of doors along the wall. Each room belonged to someone who'd died and been found worthy of this place, and it was their own little version of paradise. You could have whatever you wanted and do whatever you felt like there. You want, bang, it's there. You never got tired, never got hungry, and never felt pain, unless you wanted to. You could even visit other people who you knew and see their little heavens.

I enjoyed myself, I'll admit. Who wouldn't love to have everything they'd ever wanted on a silver platter? Still, to me this wasn't…complete. Like there was some little piece that was missing, and had to be found before it could truly be perfect. I knew exactly what it was, of course. At first I did what anyone would do, or at least what I expect anyone would do, and that was to create my own little version of her up here with me. She looked exactly the same, even down to the way her little feather crest tilted resolutely to the left. She laughed at everything the real Pyra would, got annoyed at all the right pet peeves, and pretty much mimed her perfectly. But it wasn't her. No matter how perfectly I copied her, it would just be a fake, a cheap imitation, and I knew it. Eventually it hurt too much to keep trying, so I gave up.

Instead, I watched the real Pyra. See, up in the Hall everyone gets their own little Camera Obscura. It lets you look down on the earth and see pretty much whatever you like. So I watched her, often for hours on end. I cannot tell you how proud I became of her. I watched as she returned to the guild and continued to help those in need. Everywhere she went she told our story to anyone who would listen. Everyone knew she missed me, but they never knew how much because she always put on a brave face for the world. No one ever saw her cry, or look sad, or anything like that, not even when she was describing how I'd faded away. Well, no one but me. I was the only one who saw her when she was alone, lying in bed in our little room. Every night she would look over at the bed where I used to sleep, and I would see the tears come each time. I always thought she would break and cry herself to sleep, but she never did. Not one tear left her eye, ever. I can't say the same for myself.

Months passed, and I watched Pyra rise through the ranks at an incredible speed. She went from Gold rank to Hyper rank all by herself. I continued to watch over her day after day, constantly being amazed by just how much she had grown. She was doing things now that I'd never even dreamed she was capable of. It wasn't long before everyone within ten miles of Treasure Town knew her not only because she helped save time, but because of her reputation as an exploration team leader. There was even talk in the guild of putting her up for the next graduation exam.

I was watching her late one evening after she'd made her way back from a solo rescue mission to Crystal Crossing. She'd been downright amazing, as usual, fighting her way through three Monster Houses, dodging two cave-ins, and taking down anything that came at her, usually with one hit. Anyway, it was now just before sunset, almost curfew time at the guild. Right now Pyra was just walking out the front door when she passed Bidoof, the next newest rookie after us. "Hey Pyra," he called. "Where are you off to?" Pyra stopped, turned around and smiled at him. "Oh, I'm just going for a walk," she replied. "Well, don't be too long," Bidoof said. "You need to be rested up if you want to do good tomorrow, yup yup." Pyra smiled again before turning away and heading off. "Thanks Bidoof. I'll keep that in mind."

I watched her as she made her way south from the guild. She was heading for the beach, something she hadn't done for a while. Normally she'd been too busy running her team to have much free time to herself, but tonight she must have finished early because here she was. As she came to the shoreline she looked up to see a sky of glistening bubbles overhead. She'd always loved that sight, she'd once told me. Whenever someone had picked on her or called her a coward, she would come down to the beach just to watch the Krabby blow their bubbles, and then she wouldn't feel so bad.

She just sat there for about ten minutes, watching the bubbles drift lazily across the sky, and then she stood up and began to wander aimlessly down the coast. She seemed at peace, at least until her eyes came to rest on a small rock jutting out of the sand not far from the entrance to Beach Cave. I recognized it as the place where she'd found me all those months ago. The tears were back in her eyes now, and although they didn't break free yet, I could see that they would soon.

"Pyra? Pyra!" a voice called from across the beach. Pyra turned, and I adjusted my focus until I saw Bidoof making his way across the sand. "Pyra- oh, there you are! I've been looking everywhere. You've been gone a while, so I came to check-Pyra, what's wrong?" He had seen the look in her eyes, the tears that so far she had hidden from everyone but me. Pyra said nothing for a moment, and instead walked over to Bidoof and sat down next to him, staring out at the waves.

"Bidoof," she said at last, and I heard her voice shake slightly with the tears she was holding back. Suddenly I was looking not at the confident, self-assured leader she had become, but at the fragile creature she had once been. "I want him back. I need him. I just want to see him one more time."

Bidoof looked flustered. "I, um…well," he blathered, clearly at a loss for what to do. I knew what I would have done. I would have sat down next to her and put my arm around her, whispering softly to her that it was going to be okay, that I was there and I was going to make sure it worked out. But of course I couldn't do that. I wasn't there, and worse, that was the problem. If only I could be there for her now, she wouldn't be like this. I could feel my own tears coming now, and unlike her I couldn't hold them back. I stood there, staring down from across a void that I could never cross, letting my misery spill silently from my eyes.

At first, I didn't notice the golden light racing up my arms, lost in my grief as I was. Eventually, however, the glow became too obvious to ignore, and as I watched my whole body was quickly swallowed up into a yellow orb. Then I began to disintegrate, like the way I had before except much faster. As I fell into the void again I heard a voice saying "Please accept my thanks." To this day I'm not sure how I know, but I would bet my life that the voice I heard was Dialga.

For a while I knew nothing. None of my sensory organs were whole, so I couldn't see, hear, or feel anything at first. Gradually, though, I began to get put back together, and my senses returned. The first thing I noticed was the feeling. It was the feeling of salt air on my skin. Then my nose was finished, and I could smell it too. When my ears came around I could hear waves crashing nearby. The last things to come were my eyes. They were closed, and at first I didn't open them, not daring to believe. Finally, though, I slowly cracked them open, and gasped.

I was back. I was home again, standing on the beach exactly where I had been that day so many months ago. I looked around wildly, taking in all the familiar sights and hardly daring to believe that I had been given another chance here. Then I saw her. She was still exactly where she had been when I had seen her last. She hadn't noticed me, but Bidoof had, and he was staring at me with open-mouthed astonishment. He stood there gaping like a Goldeen for a solid minute, and then he finally managed to make a sound. "Uh, Pyra?" he said at last. "You might want to see this."

She looked up at him, and then followed his gaze until she saw me too. At first her facial expression didn't change, and I knew that she simply could not process what she was seeing. Eventually, however, the message got through, and her look of sadness was lost to one of disbelieving wonder. "…Troke?"

I wanted to say something cool and suave. I wanted to sound totally calm and in control, but of course I couldn't. I'd been away from her for far too long, and my joy at having her back absolutely refused point-blank to be restrained in any way. So I ran at her as fast as I could, and she ran at me. When she was close enough I grabbed her and lifted her into the air, spinning on the spot. Then I set her down and squeezed her as tightly as I dared while she tried to get her stubby little wings as far around me as she could. She only managed to get about halfway around my waist, but do you honestly think I cared?

We stayed that way for a long time, and for the first time I noticed that she was warm to the touch. Well, it made sense, I suppose. I'd re-learned enough about Torchic physiology to know that like most Fire-types they had a small fire-sack inside of them which provided them with their fire-breathing abilities. It felt nice.

Eventually she pulled away and looked at me. There were still tears in her eyes, but she no longer looked miserable. "I didn't cry," she said, her voice now shaking badly with the pent-up sorrows that I knew were going to come out soon. "Not once." I smiled softly. "I know. I've been watching." I put my hand on her shoulder and continued. "But you can now, if you want to."

She gave me a watery smile, and then buried her face in my shoulder and bawled. I put my arms around her again and rested my check against her softy, downy feathers as my own tears came again as they had so often before. Eventually we both had no more tears to cry, but it was still a long time before we let go of each other.

When we did finally pull apart again, I looked into her face the way I had right before I had vanished. She really was beautiful, at least to me. Even when her eyes were red and swollen from crying, they still gleamed like black gemstones. 'Oh, what the heck,' I thought, before leaning forward and kissing her again. This time she knew what I was doing, and she leaned into the contact, kissing me back as hard as she could. I honestly don't know how long we stood there like that. It could have been a minute, an hour, or a week. Eventually, however, we were interrupted by Bidoof's exclamation of "What was that?"

I pulled reluctantly away from Pyra and smiled. "It's called a kiss," I said, my eyes never leaving hers. She smiled coyly and continued for me. "It's how humans say 'I love you.'" Then my lips found her beak again. "Well, by golly."

They say time heals all wounds. I don't believe it myself. Sure, often it's the balm that eases pain, but sometimes the passage of time does not wipe away the agony. Sometimes it only makes it worse. There's even the rare instance when it's the knife that carves the wound in the first place. Even so, don't resent it too much, because as I've learned, it can't fix everything, but it does the best it can. And often, that's good enough.


End file.
